If I don't eat, I get hypoglycemic. If you don't know what that feels like, think flu. Tremors, headache, dizziness, fatigue, dry mouth, delirium, light-headedness, nausea. None of that is sudden, it starts out all sneaky-like so it's hardly noticeable, and gains in intensity until it feels like I'll collapse. To avoid this, I try to eat at least every three to four hours.
When I do eat, I usually feel like I'm going to throw up. I often feel extremely sleepy after eating, even if I didn't eat very much. All that sort of takes the fun out of eating out or having dinner with friends.
When I eat dairy products, fats, and/or sugars I get abdominal cramps, and when I
don't eat them I feel constantly hungry and often hypoglycemic.
What I should be eating is as natural and organic as possible, which is first expensive and second time-consuming to prepare. If I'm too tired to work I can't afford organic food, and if I'm working I'm too tired for all the prep work involved in healthy eating, but the alternative is prepackaged lack of nutrition which is not going to aid in recovery.
Frustrating, to say the least. Besides all that, if everything I eat is
going to make me nauseous and give me a stomach ache and indigestion
but I must eat to stay alive...it had better taste good.
More frustration has arisen from the slow but steady gains in weight and belly blubber, when my heart isn't strong enough to tolerate exercise, I don't have a budget that allows for constantly buying bigger clothes, and diet changes seem impossible.
So I resorted to my motto, "I do what I can", and my plan of attack has been something like this.
1. Take the prescribed supplements at the prescribed times.
2. Eat something, it doesn't matter what, for breakfast within an hour or two of getting up.
3. Eat something, it doesn't matter what, for lunch.
4. Eat something, it doesn't matter what, for supper.
5. Remember this is what I can do now, and trust that I'll be able to do more later.
I kept telling myself I would eventually have enough energy to pay closer attention to my diet. It turns out that was true. I've been able to muster enough energy in past months to grow and preserve a lot of my own food. I do most of the cooking now instead of my teenagers having to fend for themselves. And a good friend hooked me up with a CSA. http://www.cloudviewecofarm.org/
I haven't been able to do much of anything this summer and fall besides gardening and canning, but it was more than I was able to do last year.
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